The present invention relates to wall mounted storage cabinets, and in particular to wall mounted storage cabinets especially suited for hospital and health care environments.
In general, wall mounted storage cabinets typically include a compartment defined by a pair of side walls, a top and bottom wall, and a front and rear wall. The front wall is often pivotable, or otherwise moveable, in order to allow access to the compartment. When neither ingress or egress of items to or from the storage cabinet is desired, the storage cabinet is covered by the pivotable front panel, and the interior of the cabinet is not visible. Often the front panel is downwardly pivotable to a generally horizontal position which allows the front panel to be used as a writing surface. The storage cabinet is desirably compact, aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, and space efficient.
In a hospital or health care environment, additional design criteria must be considered. For example, in a hospital environment, storage cabinets are often used to store prescription medicines or confidential medical information, and the cabinet therefore desirably includes a lock. Hospital storage cabinets are also desirably designed to accommodate the hospital's typical storage needs for a patient or patients and their needs, to be easily adjusted according to the continually changing identity of the patients, to facilitate communication between staff personnel, and of course to be economical.
While prior hospital storage cabinets have addressed these considerations, they have not been without the need for additional improvements. One area of improvement relates to the ease of access to storage bins or other storage sections within the cabinet. Some prior cabinets have included bins, or the like, within the storage cabinet for holding binders and other items. These bins, however, have been rigidly constructed so that removal of items from the bin requires significant empty space within the cabinet which is thereby wasted. An example of one such prior art cabinet can be seen in FIG. 10. FIG. 10 illustrates a prior art wall mounted storage cabinet 1000 which includes a rigid binder storage bin 1002 oriented vertically within storage cabinet 1000. As can be seen, in order to remove a binder 1004 from binder bin 1002, binder 1004 must be lifted vertically upward a distance substantially equal to its height before it can be pulled forward. Removing binder 1004 from bin 1002 therefore requires a significant amount of unobstructed space 1006 which cannot be used for storage purposes. This use of storage space is inefficient, and requires that extra materials and expense be expended in the construction of this type of cabinet. There is also limited ability for facile use of items such as a laptop computer or notebook tie-in with the cabinet, or other communication devices. Thus, prior art hospital storage cabinets lack modularity. They are not capable of a degree of functional interchangeability to accommodate different storage/ease of access requirements.
Another design area of prior hospital storage cabinets for which improvement is desirable relates to the placement of the lock in the storage cabinet. In prior lockable storage cabinets which include a downwardly pivotable front cover that forms a writing surface, the locking mechanism has typically been placed on the front cover itself. The locking mechanism projects outwardly from the back of the front panel and interferes with the use of the back of the front panel as a writing or working surface. This is desirably eliminated.
Other areas of potential improvement for prior cabinet designs include the reduction of costs while maintaining the same quality, the difficulty of storing modem devices, such as computers, in the cabinets, and the obstruction created in a room or hallway by the front panel when it is left in the downwardly pivoted position. It can therefore be seen that a need exists for an improved wall mounted storage cabinet which overcomes these and other disadvantages.